


lockdown

by ndnickerson



Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Time, Resolved Sexual Tension, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-24
Updated: 2010-03-24
Packaged: 2017-10-08 07:21:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/74102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ndnickerson/pseuds/ndnickerson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chuck and Sarah are stuck in Castle together after the events of 3x10, Chuck vs the Tic Tac. Written for story_lottery 3 on LJ, prompt: a cell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lockdown

**Author's Note:**

> This is set close after 3x10, and was of course jossed by 3x11.

"Phillips head?"

Chuck slowly extracted himself from beneath one of Castle's server panels and used the conference table to pull himself to his feet. He'd already bashed his curly head into a card rack or two, caught his knee on the edge of an open drawer, and sliced open the last joint on his left pinky. The moderate annoyance that accompanied every smarting wound was made all the worse when he found himself wishing that Casey was helping.

It had been bad enough when Shaw was helping, when he and Sarah had been exchanging their little smiles and knowing glances. When Sarah had taken a short break, rolling her gleaming, dust-streaked shoulders and suggesting that they break for dinner, Chuck had let Shaw gallantly volunteer to retrieve some Chinese takeout (that itself had prompted another one of those damn knowing looks) and some more high-grade optical line from the Buy More.

The lower half of Sarah's body was dangling from the hole where one of the overhead panels used to be, her sneakered heels kept carefully above a monitor. Chuck selected the screwdriver from the toolkit on the table and stood under her, clearing his throat. All his muscles were giving in to the aches and strains, and he slumped where he stood. He'd wanted to take this chance to talk to Sarah. Now that they were alone, actually doing so felt impossible.

Sarah slowly inched out of the hole, her lips drawing back as she found footholds around an angled keyboard. Their fingers didn't touch when she took the screwdriver. As she angled herself back up, Chuck's gaze traced down her blonde french braid, the knee-length shorts so tight they left nothing to the imagination, the lavender tank top that was streaked with dust and greasy grime, probably an artifact of the long-defunct Wienerlicious.

"Sarah?"

Castle was so quiet; his normal speaking voice almost boomed in the hollow space. They had rearranged so much during their refortification that they had changed the acoustics. Sarah, taken momentarily off guard, muttered a curse as the screwdriver slipped from her fingers, and she grasped the sharp edge of the hole with the slightest handhold.

The screwdriver collapsed harmlessly to the floor. If Sarah moved an inch to the left, she would scrape most of the skin off her outer left thigh in the fall.

"Just hang on," Chuck stammered out, grabbing her legs to help boost her. Her calves were silk-smooth. He shook himself, trying to focus. She swung out a little, her hips rising until they were inches from hitting him in the face, and her palm, slick with sweat, slipped.

He wasn't quite sure what happened after that. Just that they ended up in a tangle on the floor, groaning, as the alarm klaxons went off. He saw the word LOCKDOWN flash in red on the monitors, heard the iron bars snap into place.

Sarah took a breath and released a long, drawn-out curse ending in a snarl.

"Did that—"

Sarah pushed herself up on her hands, glaring down at him. Despite his screaming muscles and the klaxon blaring a full-blown headache into sudden being and the slowly dawning comprehension of the predicament they were in, Chuck couldn't deny that she looked incredibly hot. Just as she always did. But especially when she was angry.

She seemed to be angry a lot, lately.

"Was that the sound of Castle locking down? Yeah." She rolled off him and pulled herself to her feet, but their fall and the alarm had her hands trembling with adrenaline. She had to put the password in three times before she managed the right keystrokes, and the alarm silenced, leaving a ringing quiet that was only broken by her relieved sigh.

"But we took that system offline."

"We took the manual override offline."

Chuck mentally ran through the schematics he'd memorized. "Shaw's stuck outside. And he... he'll have to find a blowtorch and... probably a percussion grenade, to get to us."

Sarah walked over to the blueprints, found the one marginally more vulnerable spot in the base's security, and nodded, her lips thin. "That's not all."

Chuck groaned. "The lasers."

Sarah nodded. "Most of the special equipment he'll need is locked in here with us."

Chuck pulled out one of the chairs at the conference table and slumped into it wearily. "So we're stuck here for the night."

"At least," Sarah agreed, slumping into the seat opposite him.

\--

Chuck wasn't exactly sure how Morgan had managed to get two six-packs of grape soda into Castle's refrigerator, but he sent a silent thanks to his friend as he pulled them out. He'd left Sarah in the other room so she'd be alone to talk to Shaw. He didn't want to hear the sweeties or darlings or honeys in her voice, and especially didn't want to hear Shaw's voice saying her name, her secret name, her real name. _Sam._

The cells had bunks that were slightly better than the surplus army cots in the supply closet, but one cell in particular was the best prospect. It was the cell they had decorated to look like a girl's bedroom, with pink walls and a dresser and a door to the outside that was equally locked down. This was the bed Manoosh had woken up in, not understanding that he was in a cell, albeit a comfortable one.

Chuck idly wiped the condensation from the top of the grape soda can and let his eyes go unfocused as he gazed at the opposite wall. He'd forced himself not to think about Manoosh in quite a while; for a moment he let himself wonder where the man was, wonder if he was angry at Chuck for not letting him go when he had the chance.

But he hadn't really had a chance, not really. Casey or Sarah would have shot him on sight.

He just wasn't sure that making sure Manoosh spent the rest of his life in a secure agency bunker was much of a kindness.

Sarah walked into the observation room, stopping just behind him. "Shaw's going to get a team, but he estimates twelve hours before he's able to get all the equipment together and get to us."

Chuck offered the can to her, and she took it with a half-smile. "I'm really sorry. I know you didn't plan on spending your Saturday night this way."

"It wasn't your fault." Sarah rubbed her thumb over the top, wiping away another layer of condensation. "We should've disabled the keyboards before we started crawling around on the panels, anyway."

Chuck was pretty sure that it had been his job, or it would have fallen to him if any of them had thought about it, but he shrugged. At least now they'd have plenty of time to talk.

"Come on. I'm sure we can find something to eat down here, even if it's frozen yogurt."

Sarah shuddered. "I've never told you how much I hate frozen yogurt, have I."

\--

A thorough search turned up two airplane-sized packs of pretzels, four granola bars, half a bucket of cheese balls, and seven packets of hot chocolate mix. In the storage closet Sarah found a couple of MREs, but swore that she would only eat one of those if they reached the seventh day without any other food or water. Once they tore their way through the pretzels and granola bars, they were left with the cheese balls and grape soda. The mingled taste made Chuck think of game nights with Morgan, thumbs sore from pressing controller buttons, both of them giddy from lack of sleep.

"Did you have much left to do?"

Sarah wrinkled her nose after she scrolled through all five available channels and turned to him again. Despite the several million dollars' worth of communication equipment and surveillance technology at their fingertips, the government hadn't seen fit to shell out for fifty-bucks-a-month cable, and their best option was the feed from the Buy More television wall. "Not really, not until Dan— Shaw got back with the optical cable."

Chuck's gaze dropped to his third can of grape soda at her slip, and stayed there. "Yeah, me either. But it sure seems like we were doing a good job so far, huh?"

"You mean in that we're so safe from the outside world that we may never see it again?" The corner of Sarah's mouth lifted in a small smile.

"Oh, we will. I'm sure Shaw will get to us in record time. Even though mine isn't the smiling face he wants to see."

Sarah's smile dropped, replaced by an expression Chuck didn't quite recognize. "Soon you'll be going on your own missions, Chuck," she said, waving her hand, "and some other team will have Castle. You'll be traveling all the time, saving the world."

Chuck sighed, looking around. This, this place, with all its weapons and gadgets, represented everything he'd wanted for so long. He would be sorry to leave it for the last time.

"And you'll be doing that, too. Unless you're looking for a more permanent reassignment."

Sarah looked away, covering her silence with another long sip of grape soda. The purple drink left her lips faintly darker. "I think I am," she said softly. "But then, Burbank was never gonna last forever."

"Of all the gin joints in all the world," Chuck said softly, and he saw her head whip around to face him again, but he didn't meet her gaze.

\--

They took turns in the shower. Chuck found a set of the workout clothes he'd left stashed in his locker, and emerged toweling his hair dry, in grey sweatpants and a white t-shirt. The Pepto-Bismol-pink nightmare of a room wasn't so bad with the lights turned down; he felt the beginnings of a flashback, but tamped it down. This wasn't the time, wasn't the place. He was pretty sure it wouldn't ever be appropriate, again.

"I can grab one of the other cells," Chuck shrugged. He was keeping his gaze on Sarah's face, not on the expanse of tanned gleaming thigh revealed by her tank-top-and-boyshorts ensemble. Sarah gathered half her hair in one fist and scrunched it, letting it fall damply back to her shoulder.

"Don't bother," Sarah sighed, patting the bed next to her.

Chuck tossed the towel back into the bathroom and sat down beside her. "You sure Shaw won't get jealous over this?"

"Being a spy means adapting to less-than-ideal situations," Sarah said, in that halting way she had when she was telling him something she'd learned by rote, like a fairy-tale moral she didn't quite believe. "Besides, there's cameras."

Chuck cleared his throat. "I was, uh, actually working on that system when we had our— incident. I'm sure I didn't put them back online."

"Oh," Sarah said, sounding subdued.

"Yeah. But... it's okay."

Sarah nodded uncertainly and rolled over to her side of the bed, sliding under the covers.

\--

Chuck was dreaming he was in Prague again. His subconscious remembered exactly two locales: the fake town Beckman had run his training scenarios in, and the train station. He had a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist and had to get back to the town before the timer went off, but he was trying to find Sarah in the train station. He had to tell her that he just needed more time. That they could find a way to be together even if he continued his training.

But he couldn't find her.

A heavily-muscled goon shouldered his way through the crowd, knocking over a baby carriage. Chuck picked the carriage up and set it right, casting an angry glance at the goon, who lashed out at him. All day long, Beckman had been telling him to flash; now, when she wasn't here, it came clear, adrenaline ripping through him as his muscles learned an instinct they hadn't had mere seconds before.

Chuck opened his eyes, momentarily disoriented, and kicked at a boxy shape in the unexpected gloom, smashing it to pieces. He wrenched one splintered stake of pressed wood from the remains and spun, gaze darting as he sought the threat.

Gasping breath met his ears. "Chuck! Chuck, it's all right! What is it?!"

Sarah's voice.

Chuck came to himself slowly. The dresser. He had destroyed the dresser; sharp splinters were digging into his palm.

Sarah was sitting up in the bed. A small, wickedly sharp knife was clenched in her fist; he hadn't seen it a second before.

The two of them had never been safer. It would take hours of dedicated work to break through to them, and he was still holding a weaponized chunk of dresser, and she still slept with a knife in arm's reach.

Chuck forced his hand to open and let the wood drop to the floor, recognizing the ragged pants in his ear as his own breath.

"Sorry. Dream."

Sarah sighed and collapsed back to the bed, her hair spread around her pillow. "That happen a lot?"

Chuck shook his head. "No. A few times, right after," he made a gesture, indicating the time just after the newest upload, "but not really." He flexed his hand, sucking in a winced gasp at the pain in his palm, and went into the bathroom, flipping the light on.

"What's wrong?"

"It's nothing."

For a second he thought she was going to take his word for it. Then he saw her face, pale in the fluorescent light, over his shoulder as he ran his hand under the faucet. Sarah popped open the mirror; the cabinet behind was stocked with the things a guy would expect to find in a girl's bathroom, down to a few single condoms in their wrappers. She pulled out a tube of salve and some band-aids, then gestured for him to sit down on the toilet seat.

"You're going to need tweezers."

By default she had become their field surgeon, thanks to her smaller fingers and steady hands. And, he had to admit, probably because she was a girl and they didn't question it, and she didn't protest. Cole certainly hadn't. Casey generally took care of his own wounds, but Chuck would take any opportunity to have Sarah's hands on him outside a sparring session.

Sarah picked out each splinter, bending close over her work, spreading salve over the inflamed, swelling wounds. When the last band-aid was in place, he looked like a bested prizefighter.

"Any more?"

Her lashes were low. They were both tired; it had been a long day, the grape soda wasn't caffeinated, and they had barely managed to catch two hours of sleep before his waking dream. Her fingertips were still resting lightly on his wrist.

Chuck took her hand and placed it on his head; immediately she began to cautiously massage his scalp, and parted his hair when she found a slight swelling. "No blood. Not much I can do about that," she announced, her head close to his. She shifted her weight. The strip of bare flesh between her tank top and boyshorts was on level with his eyes.

Chuck took a slow breath, noting that she didn't flinch when his fingers brushed her knee on the way to the cuff of his sweatpants. He pushed them up over his knee, wincing as he hit the bruised area.

"You're just a mess, aren't you."

The floor was a cold utilitarian concrete, but she knelt to it anyway, whisking a wet washcloth over his knee before she patted it dry, slicked a layer of salve over it, and bandaged it. Then she looked up at his eyes, still kneeling between his knees.

"I was wrong, Sarah," he said, his mouth suddenly dry. The color had come into her cheeks and her hair fell in darker loose ringlets down her back and her eyes were wider, bluer underneath her long dark lashes. "I don't want to see you with him. I don't want to see you with anyone else. I haven't gotten over you. I don't think I ever will."

Sarah swallowed and put the last bandage, the tube of salve back onto the sink.

"I'm sorry. But it's true."

"Don't be sorry," she said again. "It's not your fault."

Chuck let out a low, soft laugh. "How is it not my fault?"

She tensed, then visibly forced herself to relax, to make her voice casual. "I didn't like seeing you with Hannah either."

"Oh?"

She wasn't meeting his eyes. "So I guess I kind of lied, too."

\--

He was surprised he didn't stumble and crack his head open on the concrete floor, they moved so fast, her legs around his waist and their mouths locked hard together as he staggered blindly to the bed. He wasn't going to take this for granted.

They were locked into Castle, for hours, a bed and condoms at hand. There was no way this wasn't meant to happen.

Any second, any second now, Chuck knew, Shaw would burn his way through the wall and poke his head through and make some quip and they would spring apart, guiltily, and the moment would be lost for another damn year.

His legs hit the bed and he let Sarah drop onto it, their lips parting in the process, and she stripped her tank top off, leaving her naked save the boyshorts as he leaned down to claim her mouth again. One reverent hand closed over her breast as she cupped the back of his head, forcing her mouth hard against his, crushed so hard his lip was hot and swelling, and she drew her legs up, cradling his hips between her thighs, pushing his sweatpants down with the soles of her feet.

She seemed just as desperate, just as disbelieving as he felt, like they had to get it over with, had to hurry before they were interrupted.

But this was Sarah Walker, he'd loved her for so long (_Sarah, Sam, it didn't matter, the woman he loved was both and neither of them_), and he wasn't going to let this begin with a frantic, fumbling two-second joining.

With supreme effort he managed to pull back. "Swear to me," he said, his voice shaking with the strain as her hips angled under his and nudged him just-so, "that if nuclear holocaust or Ring agents or Bizarro Superman interrupt this— don't ask," he warned, off her suddenly skeptical look and furrowed brow, "that we will finish this later. As in tomorrow or in a few days, not a year from now."

He was afraid to even take that long, to give either of them time to think about it, but he didn't want her mournful, regretful after, either, didn't want her second-guessing what they had done and confessing her guilt to Shaw. He knew exactly what he was doing, but the Intersect could have him awake and alert in half a second; she still had to be exhausted, though her movements weren't the slow dreamlike dance of a sleepwalker.

"I promise."

"I'm going to hold you to that."

Her toes hooked at the elastic waist of his sweatpants and when she'd pushed them down as far as she could, Chuck rolled off her and stripped them and his boxers off, watching her kick up so that her head was on the pillow again. He stripped off his shirt and Sarah yanked her boyshorts down in one swift movement, kicking them off her side of the bed.

Fully clothed, even in the shorts and grimy lavender shirt she'd worn earlier, she was breathtakingly gorgeous. Naked, just the mere sight of her was enough to make him giddy.

"Just a second."

The condoms were still there, just as he'd last seen them, and the wrappers weren't empty. He flipped the light off and walked back to the bed with one and she had one knee bent, the sole of her foot flat on the hideous coverlet, her chin tilted up toward the ceiling. The bed creaked as he slid onto it and she turned to face him.

"This doesn't fix anything."

Chuck touched the side of her face, letting his fingers drift down to trace the loose slope of a breast. "Are you still going to go to D.C.?" he asked, his voice deceptively calm. "Leave this?"

She shook her head. "I don't know," she admitted quietly, "but it won't be that."

"Before... you wanted us to be together."

"You were someone different," she said, sitting up. She clasped her knees to her chest. "After the test you'll be a spy, Chuck. Just like that. And they'll never let you go."

"You're the best agent CIA has, Sarah. They aren't exactly going to let you go either." He put his hands on her knees; the awareness of her naked skin thrummed through him. "We can make this work."

"It never does."

Chuck was quiet for a minute, his palms drawing circles on her knees. "It won't be like it was with Bryce, Sarah. It won't."

"You can't promise that. None of us can promise that."

Chuck gave her a half-smile. "Then let's take a break, after the test. Just the two of us. No guns or missions or tranqing or interrogation, just us."

"For a little while."

"Yeah. For a little while."

Her legs fell open under his hands, and he was left speechless.

\--

The length of his involuntary celibacy had left him oversensitized, ready to burst at the merest touch against bare skin. With Hannah, Chuck had tried to draw it out, tried to make the foreplay last, but his self-control always broke. The adoration and desire in her eyes had been enough to drive him over the edge.

For that, alone, he was thankful, that he could hold out, that he didn't give in to the frantic clasp of Sarah's hands as she led him to where she wanted him. When she groaned in frustration he curved two fingers up between her thighs and teased a series of rising gasps from her trembling lips, pulling back when Sarah's fingers dug into his shoulder blades, her hips jerking and falling with his rhythm.

"Shh, baby."

"Don't call me baby," she grated out, her teeth gritted as she shivered under him. "Now."

"No."

"No?"

She had barely managed to force out the single syllable before he had flipped her over, onto her hands and knees, and slid down on the bed. With a pleased sigh she slid her knees apart, her hips sinking until his shoulders were caught under her thighs. He cupped her luscious ass and angled her down so he could press his tongue between her slick inner folds, flicking it up to find her clit. She groaned in frustration and ground against him, and in retaliation he thrust his fingers back up inside her as he gently closed his teeth around her clit.

"God," she cried out, rocking her hips, her pants ragged as he swirled his tongue over the button of sensitive flesh, his fingers relentlessly driving home inside her. When his hand started to cramp he shoved her hips back, swinging her to her side, and Chuck felt the mattress dip beside him just before he felt—

"Fuck," he groaned, shivering as she licked the head of his shaft, her fingers measuring his breadth and length with gentle strokes before she took him into her mouth. Her tongue curled around the underside of his cock as she bobbed her head down, her fingers expertly massaging the base of his shaft, the tips of her wavy hair brushing against the saddle of flesh that ran between his thighs. He slid the fingers that weren't still slick with her into her hair, pressing her back down every time she pulled back, and when she cupped his balls Chuck snarled out another curse, planting his feet and pushing himself back.

"Now."

"No," Sarah replied, one hand still wrapped around the base of his cock.

"I mean it." Chuck was panting, almost shaking with the effort of holding back. "Please. Please, Sarah."

The expression on her face was playful; suddenly it sobered a little. She reached for the condom he'd brought to bed with him, ripped open the wrapper and fitted it over the tip of his cock, rolling it down. She kept her hand on him even once the condom was in place.

"Do you love me?" she said, her voice barely louder than a breath.

"More than anything," Chuck said breathlessly.

She smiled, then, and it was almost genuine. "No matter what happens once we get out of here, I love you too," she said. "Damn it all."

Then she swung her knee to the other side of his hips, perched over him, and Chuck could barely breathe. This was going to happen. He started listening for the earthquake, the whine of the torch cutting through a wall, Beckman's voice booming for their attention in a sudden midnight conference.

Her hips sank to his, her hand holding him in place until he was fitted inside her, until with one smooth thrust of her hips he was fully inside her.

In that breathless second before she pulled back for a first thrust, he thought he would die from sheer joy.

Then he knew he would.

She let him flip her onto her back, her legs rising to wrap around his waist as he slammed home, his fists closing around the slats in the headboard. The pain in his palm was a distant sting, washed away in the sensation of her slick flesh against his cock, as she arched and purred under him, her cries rising to breathless screams against his thrusts.

"Sarah," he gasped, and when she raked one hand up his back and drew his face down to hers, the taste of her still on his lips, her tongue burned with the last trace of grape soda and her hips jerked under his, her nails digging into his ass. His voice dropped as he kissed her temple, panting with the effort as he buried himself between her thighs again. "Sam."

Her legs suddenly went slack around him, and then she had her heels braced on the bed and was pushing up against him, and he let her grind her hips into his as he reached between them.

She did scream, then. She screamed when he flicked her clit and suddenly she was clenched tight around him, her inner flesh rippling against his shaft, and he collapsed to her, his injured hand squeezed between them and his uninjured hand pressing against the small of her back. She trembled under him as he fought to get his breath back, his forehead against the pillow beside her.

"God," he muttered.

"Yeah," she sighed, letting out a soft whimper as he pulled his hand from between them. "I'm going to have so many bruises tomorrow."

Chuck pulled back immediately. "Are you all right?" he demanded, peering into her face.

Sarah stretched. "God, yes. It's been so long."

He almost, almost asked _So you haven't slept with Shaw_, but managed to stop himself just in time. He covered by stripping the condom off, and when he returned to the bed, a frivolous lacy damp washcloth in his hand, she took it with a smile.

"Just think. If you'd gone with me in Prague, we could have spent a week in a hotel room."

"Just think, if Morgan hadn't stolen my condom before we were in that motel room in Barstow."

"Good point," Sarah agreed, sitting up to toss the washcloth into the bathroom before she shivered a little and slid under the covers.

"Cold?"

She nodded deliberately. "Come warm me up."

Her body was flush-warm, curved and inviting on the other side of the bed. He spooned up behind her, sliding an arm over her waist.

He was dreading the morning, seeing Shaw again, leaving this place. He was dreading what was in store for them after his test, whether he passed or not. He was terrified of being a real spy. He was terrified of not being a real spy.

Sarah's hair smelled like apples.

Chuck closed his eyes, buried her face in her hair and breathed her in.

Whatever came, they would deal with it together.


End file.
